"You have to get to know it."

Nod. "We asked for some recommendations on that and the consensus was that aliens wouldn't really be in a position to do it - can't just go there and slowly learn the ropes when our presence in the country endangers us all by itself..."

"You probably should've gotten a guide from here from the start but now they're all hostile."

"I wish we had. Uh, it seems like before there were aliens around, being irretrievably hostile towards much larger polities would have been ill-advised."

"We put in the time to know how they worked. They didn't use to be internationally quarrelsome."

"Do you have recommendations for us at this point?"

"Cultivate some blues online and encourage them to run for senate?"

"There's an idea. I'll mention it."

"They have to be twenty or older and not concurrently hold any regional politics position and historically they'll do better with a party endorsement but you might be able to get one in on populism with enough green and yellow support."

"Our impression is that trade and transit to Elentari is popular in most demographics."

"Calado's got lousy voter turnout, if you want this to work you can't be wishy-washy about it."

"You think we should promise more than that?"

"Do some specific research, you not knowing things about Calado is how you got into this mess."

"I think Calado would have kidnapped our emissaries even if they'd read a less misleading selection of Calador history books."

"If you sent them like that, sure. If you'd gotten a private meeting with an indivdiual senator or even all of them and teleported in you'd have been all set."

Nod. "We'll get in touch with some blues with political ambitions and see if there's an angle that way. Thank you."

"You're welcome."

Calado hasn't tried to cut off access to the galactic internet, right?

Oh no. They are consistently good at some basic infrastructural things. The internet internets freely.

On the internet some people are discussing whether someone who ran for the Calador senate on a platform of getting Calado a colony planet would win. They have a poll. The poll options are

> yeah I'd go for that

> I wouldn't believe them unless there were alien ships in the sky trailing banners that said 'yeah we will do the planet if so-and-so is in power'

> I wouldn't believe it even then

> I wouldn't believe it but I'd vote for them, why not?

> I don't vote and wouldn't vote under any circumstances

> I don't want us to work with the aliens to meet their standards and get a planet

The results end up split about 25/6/14/25/15/15. Caste breakdowns show that purples are likeliest to decline to participate in elections ever, oranges like option four, greys like option three, and greens like option two.

there're people trying to figure out what to do about calado. vanda nosseo held an open comment meeting and i went.

Mugger writes back. what, are you gonna conquer it?

it did get mentioned but almost certainly not, the courts are super against that 

people make jokes about it on the internet all the time. somebody writes a blog post about trying to get a permission and half the comments are "somebody fucking conquer calado"